The invention relates to a field-effect transistor having a drain region, a source region and a gate electrode for influencing a channel region.
Field-effect transistors have been studied and developed in recent years, particularly on the basis of compound semiconductor materials having high mobility of the charge carriers, with these components being used particularly in the microwave and millimeter wave ranges.
It is known that the gate length L.sub.g substantially influences the high-frequency characteristics, the cut-off frequency and the noise behaviour of the field-effect transistor. In known field-effect transistors, the width of the gate electrode between source and drain is designated as the gate length.
Considerable effort has already been devoted to reducing the gate length by technological measures and thereby improving the high-frequency behaviour of the components. Reduction of the gate length is possible by improving the resolution of the structures, for example by electron-beam lithography. With conventional optical standard lithography, it has to date only been possible by the use of expensive technological measures to achieve a structural definition sufficient to operate field-effect transistors in the millimeter wave range at frequencies exceeding 30 GHz.